As we’ve got this thing called FutureIT Conference and Exhibition in Bahrain at the moment, and more importantly because I’m looking into ways to map the Mac’s Arabic keyboard to behave like it’s Windows cousin, I came across this fact which deals rather sharply with one of the most important facets of the failure of Arabs and technology in general:
History of Arabic on the Mac
al-Kaatib (Version 1.3 1987, Eastern Language Systems) was the first Arabic word processor for the Macintosh and its fate is instructive. The team that developed al-Kaatib produced a good interface with the first script-interpreter for the Arabic Mac. The context analysis to choose the correct form of the letter was a particularly important breakthrough. Al-Kaatib was without doubt the unacknowledged source for many of the conventions of Mac Arabic design. Eastern Language Systems also designed quite handsome fonts that were certainly better than anything used in Europe in the 19th century to print Arabic.
The developer, Nels Draper, has told me that he put al-Kaatib on the market in preliminary form, hoping to use the cash flow from early sales to develop al-Kaatib into a sophisticated multi-lingual word processor. Sales, however, were a fraction of what he expected, and the reason was software piracy or, to call a spade a spade, theft. Copies of al-Kaatib were found all over the Middle East, Europe and on the computers of many American Islamicists and Arabists. Yet few had bothered paying for the software; as a result, everyone was hurt: Eastern Language Systems couldn’t make enough to keep developing al-Kaatib, so it never reached its potential, and consequently, the development of Arabic software was retarded by several years. Presently al-Kaatib is frozen in its 1987 state, with no certain future. Eastern Language Systems has instead turned to Windows on the IBM compatible systems and has copy-protected al-Kaatibâ€â€Âal-Duwali, as they now call itâ€â€Âwith a dongle (an electronic device installed on the outside of the computer to insure that the program is not used illegally).
Every Arabic-script Mac user owes a debt to Eastern Language Systems for their pioneering efforts, which suggested the value of the Mac for Arabic users. Alas, this experiment also established definitively the untrustworthiness of the Macintosh Arabic language-using community.
Middle East Studies Association’s Bulletin
Why? What they’re concluding in the above bulletin is absolutely true, I have experienced it myself and have lost money by insisting that at my company always use authentic software, by selling only authentic and original software and found that the packages just stay on the shelf. We have bought I think 100 copies of Al-Katib at one point thinking that we would sell them instantly (in the early 90s, everyone who wanted to do Arabic professionally used a Mac) but we ended up donating the majority of the packages and writing the cost off.
This is the same with just about every package. When I started Computer Point other now much bigger shops and establishments who call themselves computer or technology shops were habitually selling cheap, assembled PC’s with a FULL hard disk of pirated and cracked software, from AutoCAD (which the vast majority of users don’t know anything about, but didn’t stop them from insisting on having it) to the obligatory Microsoft Office and the multitude of games. Is it a wonder then that independent software publishers completely ignore the Arab world, and the Arabic language altogether?
I still suffer from the effects of that age, you still cannot buy an Avid for instance that would naturally do Arabic titles, we have to bundle Al-Rassam Al-Arabi with its specific fonts with every system we sell. These Avid systems would set you back from a few hundred dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars yet they have no interest in supporting Arabic natively. They would happily work with multi byte Chinese character sets, but not Arabic.
The reason why Avid is not concerned about Arabic is because of the low volume of sales in this area, and piracy. The very quick selling video editing applications like the Xpress DV and the Xpress Pro are sold in the thousands in Europe and Asia, but hardly cross the 100s threshold in the Arab world. And they’re both available cracked for download. Admittedly they’re most probably cracked by Far Eastern or European crackers, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the most downloads happen from our dear Arab world. I get these reports all the time when I try to sell these simple packages. They start looking at me like I’m absolutely bonkers. I could even see the prospects leaning forward to place their palm on my forehead to see for themselves if I was suffering from high temperature or something.. they think that I’m delirious trying to sell them something that they can freely download!
This attitude is of course prevalent not only in personal users, but also some official government offices as well as all sizes of companies.
The industry’s anti-piracy office based in Dubai must be very very busy in this area. You would have to go talk to them or look at their reports to find out how big this problem is in our area of the world. Suffice it to say that when I officially complained about a private company and a government ministry using pirated software to the local government-appointed anti-piracy office via email (a Ministry of Information office in Bahrain), the manager whom I addressed that email to in confidence saw to it that my email is printed as is, with my name and full address details and showed it as is to the entities I complained about! This is how serious the government is about stamping piracy in this country, and others I would guess. That person got promoted by the way. He now wants us website owners and moderators to register our sites with his organisation.
Of course he is very ably joined by one of the organisers of the Future IT conference, the Bahrain Internet Society president no less. They too see absolutely no problem with website registration and are aiding and abetting the government in its plans rather than standing with us, the content creators. They were joined by what I until yesterday regarded one of the respected thinkers Abdulmunem Ibrahim in Bahrain in not only condoning the government’s actions, but heaping scorn on those who object to registering. (Arabic) What a shame.
And you wonder why we lack creativity, why there are a lot less books translated into Arabic, let alone originally written if a content creator is faced with all of this red tape?
What happened to the Crown Prince’s effort of replacing red tape with red carpet?
What the government and its (blind) supporters are braying about (now, when they’re pushed into a corner) is to regulate the web, protect against indecency, child pornography, deviant sites, sites which threaten national unity and spread sedition, blasphemous, libelous and of course “protect” the content creators’ copyrights. When this scheme was launched, it was just that last part that they were concerned about. Now all of a sudden we get all the other definitions as well.
My question to all of these respected people is: aren’t there any courts in the land? Or is it the Ministry of Information’s job now to play judge and executioner?
If an article which appeared on a site which is objectionable, wouldn’t you think that that would be taken to a court by the person who is objecting to the article? Or is it now the Ministry of Information’s job to monitor all Bahrain-centric sites and taken them to court on what it defines as intransigent?
As to the copyright issue which they started the “bogyman” story with, aren’t they aware of the various types of unrestrictive copyrights available on the net now? They obviously have not heard (nor are interested in) of the Creative Commons licenses which this site provides its content under?
No. The issue here, as it has always been is an issue of control. Thought control. It’s not an Orwellian fantasy here but fact. The farthest thing from the government’s mind is fostering creativity. Encouraging content creators and artists is the very last thing on their mind. They, in fact, want to control everyone else’s.
Why then do we have such a debilitating press law? Why are journalists and webmasters dragged, handcuffed like common criminals to jail. Why are they shoved into cells which even cockroaches find disgusting?
All of this is of course to remind us of the “red lines” and that trespassing carries something worse than the death sentence. Total humiliation. So that we, and everyone else, would never dare cross those (very flexible and often redefined haphazardly) lines again.
Why then are you “promoting” transparency and democratic ways and institutions?
Change the country’s name to “Bahrain, Inc.” and turn the clock back a couple of decades and be done with it!
Comments
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Well done, Mahmood!
I feel relieved. I feel that a heavy burden was taken away of my shoulder (pardon my Arabic/English Language). It’s as if my thoughts were dumped through your finger tips. Thank you!
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Mahmood,
Chin up. In Southeast Asia, you have the same thing, except the ‘honest’ brokers are fewer and farther between. There are some free Arabic tools on freshmeat.net, if I recall right.
Censorship isn’t only happening in Bahrain, but across the world to different extents. People are starting to wake up, and smell the hummus, as the phrase goes. Governments and ideologies are struggling to catch up. For now, they have the guns and the weapons and the cells and the masses of ignorants. What they do not have is innovative ideas or new ways of looking at things. They are stuck.
But the pen is always mightier than the sword and those that are persecuted must suffer indignancies before they triumph. Keep plugging, and everyone who believes in freedom will support you.
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
First, I’d like to offer my thanks to all those software pirates in the Middle East for helping maintain America as an economic superpower and the world center for intellectual work. Keep up the good work! You are helping to keep America strong!
Second, I’d like to add my agreement to Mahmood’s argument. You can’t sell something people happily steal for free. This quite neatly illustrates the value of property rights, in this case intellectual property rights, in building an economy and society. Nobody will build something when he can’t maintain ownership of it.
Bernard Lewis, the historian of the Middle East, brought up the analagous issue in Middle Eastern history, that the wheel was not adopted by the main of the Arab world. Everything was carried by animals. He speculated that a wheeled cart was a considerable investment for the ordinary guy and too easily stolen. Why invest your limited resources to build something when you can’t maintain ownership of it?
Just as the Middle East missed out on the revolution of the wheel, it looks like they are losing out on the information revolution. If the Middle East remains a software backwater because it’s a pirate den, then it will never build up the intellectual capital to become competitive with the West. Now, that’s fine with me. I don’t want any competition. I want a monopoly on software production right here in America. It’s great when my potential competitors self-destruct, when they set fire to their own market.
Now, to be fair, the Middle East did not invent piracy. It’s far bigger in Asia. When I was in Korea twenty years ago, the piracy was blatant. Shops offered their jeans in one side of the window and the designer logos on the other side. You could mix and match. The same went for shoes. You could buy any “designer” shoe you wanted for five bucks. If you couldn’t go, you could just trace your foot on a piece of looseleaf paper and give it to a friend who was headed for Korea. Any album or cassette your wanted could be had cheap in pirated form. Sometimes the packaging was a little blurry but the tape was fine. In the Philippines, pirated albums were going for two bucks each.
There was also quite a bit of mainstream software being offered for sale via websites in Mexico. That looked awfully suspicious.
While these pirates make short term gains, their national markets lose out in the long term by making it a hostile environment for software production. I just wish India would start pirating more software so that competition there would dry up, too.
Steve
Re: Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
[quote]Why invest your limited resources to build something when you can’t maintain ownership of it?[/quote]
Linux and its GPL allies would disagree. The future, IMO, is in open software and hardware and pay-for services. There are people who will gladly share their inventions with you, and allow you to take and improve upon them, so long as you share your improvements.
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Mahmood I totally I agree with you if you profit from it then it is theft and companies who use ELS software without paying for it a very bad thing it killed something that could have been even greater.
But this conversation isn’t about piracy really, it is the government ignoring some very basic copyright laws. Just yesterday my uncle was telling me about a book he was reading that was translated to Arabic yet he didn’t know which English book it came from. The author just translated it and left his notes and stuff on the pages but never gave credit from where he got it. My uncle was annoyed cause he wanted to get the original english version so he can double check what the author wrote and what was translated but he couldn’t.
Governments can ignore other countries’ copyright, India just did that with the WIPO, yet they still fight with tooth and nail for their people’s copyright and registered trademarks. This is what is needed in the Arab world. If the our governments won’t protect our own intellectual property then why should we bother respecting others?
–nibaq
Re: Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
The US is working on Patent and Trademark enforcement. But, for the moment, they are concentrating on China and other Asian economies. The value of Trademark and Patent theft from China alone is in the millions. There is a Patent Enforcement Treaty. I do not know if any Middle Eastern nations are signatories or not.
Re: Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
That’s because they do not value creativity.
Creativity is an intangible, you cannot hold it, weight it, size it. So it MUST be free. And why should we pay hundreds of dollars for a CD that costs pennies? Who cares about copying and distributing a book. As this is their general thoughts, I wonder why they complain when someone copies their money notes and start using them!
But you’re right, copyright and intellectual property is only one facet of this article. The more important thing I wish to discuss is why do our governments habitually put road-blocks in the way of creativity? Why does an author have to register a work with a press and publications directorate in order to write a book or compose a piece of music? Why do we have to have permission and approval for a script before we shoot a film or documentary?
Why not take that red-tape and convert it into a red-carpet principle? Wouldn’t that be more condusive to creativity? One less hurdle to worry about?
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
[quote] Why does an author have to register a work with a press and publications directorate in order to write a book or compose a piece of music? [/quote]
It is PURRRFECTLY MIND blowing isn’t it? ANY BOOK printed/sold in Bahrain must be approved. I have been involved in this more than once and it is an unneeded step. I won’t say it was difficult process but pointless is more like it. It is a burdon on the Author(s) and a real pain for the actual printer as in the company that PRINTS the books.
Re: Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
My brother just returned from kyrgyzstan, said you could by any software on the marked and most any cd. Of course they didnt sell the ones I want copys of “Gena Ravan and 10 wheel drive” vinyl albums. Got to admit I used pirated versions of photoshop for a number of years because I didnt have that kind of money to throw away on a toy. Then I found paint shop pro, its a very good alternative to photoshop and only costs $99.
billT
Re(1): Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
[quote]The more important thing I wish to discuss is why do our governments habitually put road-blocks in the way of creativity? Why does an author have to register a work with a press and publications directorate in order to write a book or compose a piece of music?[/quote]
In the US, no matter what you create, you automatically gain copyright over it. There are few roadblocks to instant protection in the states.
On the other hand, certain countries hate cretivity and innovation because such things stifle their imposed social order. Why is it that any city in Italy has more artwork per capita than North Korea or the Middle East? Creativity and innovation means loss of control. And undesireable element in a society that thrives on mental control or groupthink toward an ideal.
In the 1960’s they said music can set you free. The same is true even now. stifling the human will to create because of fear of some taboo leads only to backwardness and repression.
Re(2): Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Patent law isnt so easy. The courts here in the US are filled with patent law suits, but at least there is a process.
Re(3): Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Patent law would be less of a hassle if prior art investigations were more thorough, and certain things like ‘business methods’ were unpatentable.
Re(4): Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Well, they are trying to get mistakes down to 4% this year. We’ll see. With the strong economy it is going to be hard to find enough qualified examiners willing to stick around. Why hang out doing patents for $100,000 a year when you can go private sector and make $150,000+? Job security is it.
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
very few arabic software companies servive for long and turn profits
remmber Sakhr ? ( http://www.sakhr.com/ ) back in the day they did an arabic version of windows 3.1 that ran better than MS one , and they had more programs
they had to turn into other software that companies and goverment buy , because they are the ones who pay for original programs not consumers
which effect us consumers by not having any program for home use
like video / picture editing tools
hell you can’t find arabic shareware/freeware these days !
forzaq8.net (can’t register for some reason)
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
I am mixed about piracy in developing countires, I actually think its is a good thing. When I was a teenager, I pirated everything for my computer. Never once paid for a single piece of software, game. One main reason was we never had access to it, the other was the amazing price gouging. From my pirated software Photoshop, Windows, Excel, Word, etc I learned how to use them, I became very profiecent on using computers, my friend got Visual Basic and learned to program. We learned a lot from it, we got a skill that even kids in US were amazed he had since we didn’t have the entry cost burden.
This is how Korea, India and other countries developed they ignored copyright laws in order for allowing themselves to learn and develope without the cost burden of paying for the right. Even the US back when they first started out ignored all copyright laws so they can produce and learn without paying money to the Europeans.
Same with our company, when we first started it was pirate booty galore, cause the truth is we just started and couldn’t afford that stuff. Now we pay for it, not just cause we can afford it but also cause we depend on it and gotten used to it.
Which bring up another matter, now imagine if Avid integrated the arabic support to their package and people got used to it and depended on it even if they didn’t pay for it at first. That would become their gold standard. People would be familiar with using it and no learning curve at all cause they played with it and know how to use it. So when it is time to start paying for it they will get that first since they are used to it.
I believe people rather pay money for something than deal with the burden of getting it for free.
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
^^^nibaq
bah again
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
It is a well known fact that some companies, while not encouraging piracy, do not actively condone it either. A popular example of this is Adobe. There are many many users of pirated Adobe products, just think about how popular Photoshop is. I’m talking about the west here, and not eastern piracy hubs. Users get hooked on pirated versions of photoshop from college, where everyone is using it. By the time they join corporations and become designers or even IT managers, guess what they buy from the company’s budget? That’s right.. photoshop. Adobe know that a consumer will never spend more than $1000 on software, so they let them have their fun. They go after big corporations and make them pay. Works very well for them.
e.
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Gents (nibaq, e.) you miss the point: piracy = theft
end of story.
Fortunately however there are various things that you can do. If you’re a student or educator, you can get “educational” discounts on packages which is normally 75% or more discount, makes it well within the reach of most students.
For the rest of us, there are alternatives: The Gimp for instance is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. OpenOffice.org is another one which wipes the floor with Microsoft Office, but is actually open source and free. I’m sure if you spend the time you would find a replacement for just about any commercial offering. Some might be rough around the edges, some you will find better than a commercial product. Just spend the time.
If of course you want to just “try it out” then most software packages are available on a 30-day trial license.
To me, if you make money out of it, and it’s sold, you have to buy it. The premise that “it won’t hurt them” and “they know about it and condone it” just doesn’t wash. It DOES hurt them and ultimately small innovative companies like Eastern Language Systems suffer, and ultimately WE as users suffer.
End of story.
Re: Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
Some companies have gotten smart about coopting the college pirates by selling rock bottom priced copies of their software. For example, when I lived in Austin, I bought a copy of Microsoft Office from a coworker who went to UT Austin. They sold them at the campus bookstore for $15 per copy. I got two.
Steve
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
I used to own a software package that we marketed and later sold to a major US corporation. We refused to sell our software to the Far East 20 years ago because of pirating. Now, India is much cleaner…and even China is cleaning up its act(although it has a long way to go).
First…there must be laws supporting intellectual property…then you have to enforce them. That is really hard to do. You have to fight a sense of entitlement. How can you attract investment without these safeguards?
Corruption is a tough nut to crack. The corruption problem in Iraq is just as serious as the insurgency.
You are shining a light on it…that is a first step. My hat is off to you! May a thousand lights shine on the problem!
thinker
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
sorry but I was totally disappointed with the Future IT exhibition, and they actually call that an exhibition! more like a bazzar – the only stands that you’d find worthwhile was hp, microsoft, samsung, world sumit awards/icnn!
Hp – the dude would show you the wonders of the hp printer 375, and explained how it works and stuff. @ MS – the folks were very informative and i even managed to bother MS’s spokesperson for Bahrain’s e-gov strategies into answering hard questions about open source software, search in longhorn and found some interesting things about security among other info – techies over at MS made my day i guess. Samsung sttod out with their motion detedction screen while the technicaian over at iccn was really helpful with explaining all about the World Sumit Awards, the internet site awards and bahrain e-content , though someone around there did hint that ‘wasta’ has soemething to do with some of the winners of the e-content awards in Bahrain 😀
Apart from that the place was like a ghost town, it was felt a lot by exhibitors too! Maybe Creative Gulf did their part well cos the Global ICT/Future IT conferences were swell! really rocked! and no side attractions at the exhibition though for the famillies, maybe next year it would be better, hopefully!
final word: bahrain internet society, Bahrain it society – need more guidance in answering press interview questions – even in arabic – bad show – however, there’s room to improvise next time.
Arab Success Stories in Modern Technology
the last comment was by me – strav 🙂